CHAPTER – EIGHT | TruthArya

CHAPTER-EIGHT

CREATION

In this chapter, we shall deal with the creation, sustenance and dissolution of the universe.

‘O men! The supreme Being is He by whom this whole universe has been brought to light, who sustains and dissolves it, who is the Lord of all this world and in whom this whole universe finds the principle of origin, sustenance and end. Him dost thou know and acknowledge no other being as the author of this creation.’

-तैत्तिरीयोपनिषद् भृगुवल्ली- 1

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Question-Does this universe originate from God or from anything else?

Answer-Its agental cause is God, but its material cause is Prakriti or materia radica.

Question-Did God not create the Prakriti?

Answer-No. It is beginning-less.

Question-What is the meaning of the word ‘beginning’ and how many things are beginning-less?

Answer-God, soul and the material cause (materia radica) of the universe are beginning-less.

Words of Translator-A pot has three causes:

The potter, who makes the pot.
Clay, of which the pot is made.
The tools with which the pot is made, including time, place et cetra.

In Sanskrit, they are called respectively as nimitt cause, upadaan cause and sadhaaran cause. It is difficult to find English equivalents for them. Other translators have translated ‘nimitt’ as efficient, though we feel that in many respects the word is misleading. In fact the efficient cause is that which needs no other cause.

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The material cause is beginning-less like the root. The created objects of the world are like branches. In their created stage, they are gross. In their dissolute stage, they are fine. The whole thing (root and branches), has been called ‘tree’.

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The soul enjoys well the fruits of this tree of the world as the reward, for his good or bad deeds. But, the former, that is, God not enjoying the fruit of His actions but, brightens or supervises the whole thing in and out. God is distinct from the soul. The soul is distinct from God. The prakriti is distinct from both of these. And, all the three are beginning-less.

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These three (Prakriti, Soul and God) are the cause of the universe. They have no cause of theirs.

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Just as limbs of the body are of use only so long as they are with the body and become useless when separated, similarly passages become meaningless when they are taken away from the context, or combined with irrelevant passages.

Question-How many are the causes of the world?

Answer-Three-first agental cause, second material cause and third auxillary cause.

Agental cause is that by whom the thing is made and without whose agency the thing cannot come into being. The agental cause does not convert himself into that being. He only changes one thing in the form of another.

The material cause is that without which the thing cannot be made, which itself is transformed into that thing and is again dissolved also.

The auxiliary cause is that which is instrumental or an ordinary help in the formation of the thing.

The agental cause is of two kinds:

The chief agental cause is God who makes the universe out of the materia-radica, sustains and dissolves it and governs everything.

Then, there is another agental cause, the soul which is an agent in an ordinary sense. It takes the articles out of God’s creation and fashions them into different forms.

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Without these three causes (agental cause, material cause and auxiliary cause) nothing can be made or un-made.

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If God were the material cause of the universe as you hold, then He would become changeable, transformed and corruptible.

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This whole universe was enveloped in darkness in the dissolution preceding this creation and will become the same when the dissolution commences again. In that condition, it was neither knowable nor thinkable, nor perceptible by patent sense-assignments, nor will it be. But at present (in the state of creation) it is patent and knowable by means of apparent assignments.

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Question-What is the object of God in creating the world?

Answer-What would have been His gain had He not created the world?

Question-Had He not created the world, He would have been saved so much botheration (remained happy) and the souls would have been free, from the turmoil of pleasure and pain.

Answer-These are the ways of the idle and inactive and not of energetic beings. And what pleasure or pain is there for the souls in the state of dissolution? If you compare the pleasure and pain of the world, happiness many times exceeds pain and many pure souls earn the bliss of salvation by constant practice of virtuous actions. In the state of dissolution they lie unconscious as in sound sleep. Besides, the actions done by the souls in the creation last preceding would remain unrewarded and the souls deprived of the enjoyment of their fruit. If anybody asks you, “what is the object of your eye?’ You will naturally say, “Seeing”. Well, when God possesses the knowledge, the power and the potentiality of creativeness, how can He justify Himself except by creating the world?

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Question-Which is the first, the seed or the tree?

Answer-The seed. Seed, occasion, genesis, origin and cause are the synonymous. Seed means cause and therefore, it must pre-exist the effect.

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The weaving of a cloth can begin only when there exist a weaver, cotton thread and weaving instruments. Similarly, pre-existence of God, materia-radica, time, space, and eternal soul is essential for the creation of the world. If one of these is wanting, there can be no creation.

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If you mean that non-existence is the only reality, well, the power of non-existence cannot be non-existent.

Words of Translator-The argument is as follows. Shunya or void can have only two meanings – either invisible something like ether or point, or nothingness. If former, it does not matter much as according to theistic doctrine, the cause, whether material or agental is always invisible. You can call it Shunya if you like. Mere words do not matter. But, if the latter then there arise two cases; either you know nothingness or you do not. If you do know it, then you being the knower of nothingness are yourself something and therefore contradict your own doctrine that all is nothing. If you do not know it, it is absurd on your part to enunciate the theory of nothingness.

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If the fruit of an action be dependent on God’s will, why does not God give a fruit without action?

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Words of Translator-If one species of trees bears thorns and another does not, it is clear that there must be some cause for this difference. The cause may be invisible. But, it does exist. It is wrong to say that things are produced causelessly.

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Just as in deep slumber, we experience no cognition of outer objects and yet they do exist outside, similarly during dissolution period the material cause (materia-radica) remains existent.

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Words of Translator-Swami Dayanand maintains that the whole world is not a collection of parts. It has its own separate entity.

If it is in the nature of elements to produce the universe, then the destruction of the universe will be impossible. If you say that it is in the nature of elements that the universe be destroyed, then production will be impossible. And if you hold that production and destruction both are simultaneously in the nature of elements, then production and destruction both will be impossible.

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Turmeric, lime and lemon-juice placed at different places do not come by themselves. Somebody brings them and then mixes them. Similarly, no inanimate thing can be produced, for any particular use without the materia-radica, the knowledge of atoms and their proportionate mixture which is made by God.

Question-There was no creation of the universe, nor there is nor there shall be. The world has been going on in this way from eternity. Neither was it ever created, nor will it ever be no more.

Answer-No action and nothing which is the outcome of an action is possible without the doer. The earth and other objects which exhibit a designed combination can never be beginning-less. Whatever is produced by composition does not exist before the production and does not remain after the destruction. If you do not agree to it, you can break, melt or burn even a hard stone, diamond or other things and see for yourself whether they have been composed of many particles. If they are combined, they will also be separated in due course.

Question-There is no eternal God. Whichever soul by practicing yoga and acquiring special mystic powers attains omniscience and other such attributes, that soul is called God.

Answer-If the Eternal God were not the creator of the universe, then how could the world, the body, the sense organs or other objects which are the basis of the very life of the souls and without whose help souls could not have practiced yoga et cetra have come into existence. Whatever practices a soul may perform and whatever mystic powers it might acquire, it can never be equal to God, who is eternal, self-existent, and of infinite capabilities. Even if the knowledge of a soul reaches its maximum point, it will, after all, be of limited knowledge and limited power. It can never acquire Infinite knowledge or infinite powers. No yogin has, up to this day, been ever able to change the God-made course of laws of nature, nor shall there be.

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Question-Does God make the universe, of the same type in all cycles, or is there any speciality attached to any cycle?

Answer-As it is now, so it was in the past and so shall it be in future. There is no difference.

God has, in this cycle, made the same type of the sun, the moon, electricity, the earth, the atmosphere as He made in the previous cycles, and the same He will make in future cycles. For God’s actions being infallible are always of the same kind. The actions of that being are open to flaw whose knowledge is limited and progressive, that is, subject to growth as well as decline. God’s actions are not such.

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The six systems of philosophy reconcile in the following manner:

The Mimamsa says that in the world, there is no such effect as does not require activity.
The Visheshik says that nothing can be produced without time.
The Nyaya says that without the material cause, no creation can take place.
The Yog says that no production is possible without the application of science, knowledge and contemplation.
The Sankhya says that creation cannot take place without the composition of elements.
The Vedantaa says that no article can be made unless and until the maker makes it.

Therefore, the creation requires six things. Those six things have been discussed in these six Shaastraas, one in each.

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There were six persons- five blind and the sixth shortsighted, somebody showed them different parts of the elephant’s body and then asked, “What sort of animal is, the elephant?” One of them said, “Pillar like”; another “Like an Indian flail”; another “Like a pestle”; the fourth, “Like a broom”; the fifth, “Like a platform”; the sixth, “Something buffalo like resting on four pillars”.

Analogous to this anecdote is the diversity attributed to the Shaastraas. It cannot be acceptable to the wise. If a blind man follows another blind man, they must come to grief. The ways of ill-educated, selfish and sensual people of these days are sure to bring the world to ruin.

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He, who seeks the cause of cause, effect of effect, agent of agent, means of means and end of end is blind when he sees, deaf when he hears and ignorant when he knows. Is there ever such a thing as the eye of eye, the lamp of lamp or the sun of sun? That from which a thing emanates is the cause, that which emanates from the cause is the effect and he who produces the effect from the cause is the creator.

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How intelligent is the creation of the body? It excites the wonder of the most learned. Inside is the body-frame, with nervous ties, invested with flesh and a skin cover; then there are spleen, liver, lungs and breathing apparatus; the lodging of the soul; organization of brain cells, arrangement of hair and nails; very fine eye nerves joined like telegraph wires; distinction of sense-jurisdiction, the building of different apartments in the body wherein the soul might dwell and enjoy in wakeful, dreaming and sound slumber state, distribution of all fluids, mechanism et cetra. Who can create such wonderful universe other than God? The earth set with gems and minerals, extremely delicate organism of the seeds of banyan and other trees, leaves, flowers, fruits, tubers, roots of various colours, white, yellow, black and variegated; of the various tastes, sweet, saline, bitter, astringent, pungent, sour, et cetra; various odours; myriad of orbs, the sun, the moon et cetra. The creation, sustenance, mobilization and government of so many wonder-striking objects cannot be carried on except by God. When a man sees an object, two sorts of cognitions arise in his mind, first the cognition of the nature of that objects; secondly by seeing its design, the cognition of the creator. If you find an ornament in a forest, first you will see how beautiful the ornament is then you will feel how intelligent the smith is, who has made such a pretty ornament. In the same way the various designs visible in this wonderful creation prove that there is a mighty Lord who has created all this.

Question-Which was made first? Man or the earth et cetra.

Answer-The Earth et cetra. Without them, where could man have lived?

Question-Was one man made in the beginning of the universe or many?

Answer-Many. Whichever souls, by dint of their merits and de-merits due to their past actions, deserve to be born in the non-sexual creation, they are born at that time. The Yajurved and its Brahamanaas aver that many (hundreds and thousands) were born in the beginning of creation. From the present population of the world also, it appear that men are the descendants of many parents.

Question-Were men and other creatures born young, grown up or old in the beginning of the Universe?

Answer-Fully grown-up. Had they been born young, they should have required parents to bring them up. If they had been created old, sexual intercourse being impossible, there would have been no production.

Question-Has this universe any beginning or not?

Answer-No. Just as night precedes day and day precedes night, or day follows night and night follows day, just so dissolution precedes creation and creation precedes dissolution.

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Question-God has given some souls the life of man; some cruel bodies of lions et cetra; some, those of deer, cow and other animals; some, those of trees, insects, worms, moths et cetra. This imputes partiality of God.

Answer-No. This inequality is due to the inequality of action in the previous cycle of creation. If God had given them these lives irrespective of their actions, God would have been partial.

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No Sanskrit work writes that Aryas came from Iran. And after defeating and driving out the aborigines became the rulers of this country. How can we, then, accept the statements of foreigners?

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Foreign government cannot be perfectly beneficial even when it is free from religious bias, race-prejudice and embraces parental justice and mercy.

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The Sanskrit word ‘shesh’ has two meanings, one serpent and the other the remainder. Some poet might have said that the earth rests on ‘shesh’ (meaning the remainder). Foolish persons might have taken it in the sense of ‘serpant’ and thought that the world rests on serpent. God is called ‘shesh’ or ‘remainder’ because He is not subject to birth and death. While all other objects are born and die —. He is the remainder. Therefore, it has been said that the earth rests on ‘shesh’, that is, God, not serpant.

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In the Rigveda there is another passage (10//31//8) in which ‘uksha’ has been mentioned as the supporter of the earth and the firmament. Uksha is also equivocal. It means an ox as well as the sun. Somebody seems to have mistaken uksha in the sense of ox. That silly man did not even think how an ox would be able to support the earth. As the sun supports the earth through rainfall, he is called uksha. He is holding up the earth by its power of attraction. But, there is none else than God who might support the sun and other orbs.

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If anybody says that mutual attraction being quite adequate, where is the necessity of postulating God, as the supporter of the universe, we would ask a question. “Is the universe infinite or finite?” If you say “infinite”, it is wrong as a bodied object can never be infinite. If “finite”, then there will be a limit of those attractions and the question will arise “who supports outside these limits?”

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It (sun) holds firm all orbs through its attractions and continuous rotating in his own orbit. But, it does not revolve round any other body. In this way, Brahmaandd, that is, solar-system has one self-luminous and other non-luminous bodies.

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Had the sun been stationary, it could not have moved from one sign of zodiac to another. Besides, such a huge thing as the sun cannot remain at one place in the space without rotating.

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Question-Have the other worlds also the same Vedaas, as this world?

Answer-The same. One king has one policy in all his kingdoms. Similarly, God, who is the king of kings, has the same Vedic organization in all creations of His.

Question-When the souls and material-radica have not been made by God, He should have no right to exercise His authority over them. They are all equally independent.

Answer-Just as the king and the subjects are contemporaneous and yet the king exercises his sway over the subjects, similarly God has authority over living souls and lifeless objects. When God is the creator of the world and giver of the fruit of actions of the souls, their protector and possessor of infinite power, then why should not the souls of limited power and inanimate objects be under Him? Therefore, the souls are free on their actions, but dependent on the government of God for the fruits of their actions. In this way, does almighty God create, sustain and dissolve the universe.

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